International

Singapore's ruling People's Action Party (PAP)'s response to the growing inequality in the Republic has been "largely defensive," according to Bridget Welsh, an Associate Professor of Political Science at John Cabot University. In her summary of 2018, which was published on 31 Dec on East Asia Forum, Welsh wrote: "With the blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians featuring the Singaporean super-wealthy in the backdrop, …

Veteran business journalist P. Gunasegaran and his team from the now-defunct online business news portal KINIBIZ suggested in "1MDB: The Scandal That Brought Down a Government" that "Singapore figured very highly as a place from which money laundering occurred". "1MDB: The Scandal That Brought Down a Government" is the first ever book to be written about the 1MDB fiasco. Quoting the …

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Republic's central bank, has issued a lifetime prohibition order against Tim Leissner, a former banker at global investment banking firm Goldman Sachs after he pleaded guilty to the criminal charges slapped against him by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in relation to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) graft scandal. Channel NewsAsia reported that Leissner …

International media groups started raising fund for journalists “facing extensive legal battles meant to suppress critical journalism”, and Rappler and its CEO Maria Ressa will be the first recipient of the fund. As mentioned in Rappler's site, this project is initiated by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and First Look Media’s Press Freedom Defense Fund (PFDF), with the International …

Amidst US President Donald Trump's decision to restore sanctions against Iran, Singapore-based water technology company Hyflux faces the prospect of shouldering "material adverse effect" on top of its mounting debts as a result of its decision to suspend its contracts with Water Development Engineering Company (AWDEC). The suspension took place only eight months after Hyflux had been awarded a deal …

While tech giants such as Facebook want to do what is necessary using the tools they have engineered in order to contribute to a democratic and just election process in the age of online disinformation surrounding politics, Facebook's vice president for public policy for Europe, Middle East and Africa Richard Allan said that ultimately the governments and political parties of …

Soon, all public transport in Luxembourg will be free as fares for trains, trams, and buses are lifted next summer. This is one part of the plans of the re-election coalition government led by Xavier Bettel has been sworn in as Prime Minister for a second term. Luxembourg’s capital is home to about 110,000 people while a further 400,000 commute …

Noting that most fake accounts are created "not with political intent," but "with commercial intent," which entail creating fake accounts to sell such accounts and even followers of such accounts, Facebook's vice president for public policy for Europe, Middle East and Africa Richard Allan explained that "there will be a three-month period" where "hundreds of millions of such accounts" are …

Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suffered huge losses in the local elections last weekend, losing 7 of 13 cities that it won in 2014 including two strongholds Kaohsiung and Taichung, both which well to the opposition, Kuomintang (KMT). Kaohsiung was a particularly sharp loss as the city has been a power base for pro-independence DPP for over two decades. This …

The Straits Times published a news report saying that it "continues to be Singapore's best read newspaper". Quoting the latest annual Singapore Media Index Report released by Nielsen, ST said that 29.8 per cent of Singapore residents aged 15 and above read ST everyday. "It marks a percentage point improvement from last year," ST proudly proclaimed. However, when compared with …

Democracy is best served by having an informed and involved citizenry that has access to a wide range of sources of news and views and an open and vibrant environment in which to share and to debate ideas and opinions.